


Ascension

by nesrynfaliq



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: ACOWAR, Established Relationship, F/M, Reunion, bit of fluff bit of angst bit of everything really, post acomaf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 08:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9171007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nesrynfaliq/pseuds/nesrynfaliq
Summary: Feyre/Rhys, first person, mixed POVs. Feyre leaves the Spring Court after being discovered as the Night Court spy. She rushes to meet her mate where he’s waiting for in the Summer Court, just across the border. Post ACOMAF/ACOWAR reunion. Long. (shockingly)Keep going. I have to keep going. Rhys, Rhys, Rhys.As though he hears me, as though he knows, I feel him call me.Feyre. He whispers to me, the word echoing through my mind, my heart, my very soul.Feyre. Urging me on, urging me to him, not letting me give up, not yet.Feyre. I keep going. I keep running. I keep fighting.Feyre. For him. For him.





	

_ Ascension _

My heart shudders in my chest. The hammer striking the anvil of my ribs. The battering ram that slams against its cage of bone, seeking freedom. My lungs are too tight, too small and shrinking all the time. Smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, squeezing the air from me until there’s nothing left.

I stuff my hands in my pockets to hide the shaking. Hide the fact I’m dragging my nails over my skin again and again and again in my agitation. Hide my body’s betrayal of me. Hide the evidence of my pain, my fear, my panic. Still driven to hide from those who would see only weakness to exploit. Hide though I’m utterly alone here.  

Clenching my hands into tight fists to stop the nervous movement I close my eyes, seeking to calm myself. _Free. I’m free. I got out. I’m free._  Words Mor had taught me, the only ones that had helped her after what she had endured. The only ones that help me now. _I got out. I’m free. So is Feyre._  

Closing my eyes I breathe deeply, letting the light, fresh air fill me. All I can hear are the sounds of the Summer sea lapping against the beach. Cold water tugs gently at my ankles. My bare feet have sunk into the cool sand from the time I’ve spent standing here. The ocean has long-since claimed the footprints I had left upon the sand as he paced the border line between Summer. Now I wait, still as the stars that have begun to bloom in the sky overhead. Waiting. Waiting.

All I can smell is sea. Not her. Not yet. But soon. Soon. I open the bond wide, searching, reaching for her, whispering her name into the void of pulsing music that forms their bond.

_Feyre_.

****

My feet pound over the hard earth beneath them. A frantic rhythm, like the hands that beat upon the drums of Calanmai, the thundering hooves of a deer as she flees the starving wolf. Faster, faster, my body screams in protest, my muscles bark in pain but I push myself on.  

Sweat drenches my back, chilling my feverish skin when the bite of the chill wind finds it. Running in rivulets down my back, it stings my eyes, making them water, my vision blurring but I don’t stop. Can’t stop. Can’t look back. I can only go on.

My chest is tight, burning, as though I’m breathing ash into my lungs with every gulp of air I choke down. Dizzy and sick I know I have to keep going. If I stop then I lose everything. Thoughts of Rhys keep me going. My mate, my love, waiting for me. Always waiting. Five hundred years for me to come into this world. Months to watch me die and drag me back into this world only to let me be with another male, to let me love as I would. Weeks to slowly help me put myself back together, help me be strong, help me survive. Hours to have me. Seconds to lose me once more. Waiting again, waiting for me to contact him with information and updates and waiting for me now, waiting for me to come back to him.  

_Soon_ I tell myself, soon I will see him again. I just have to keep going, keep going, keep going. I had spent most of my power escaping the house and now I find myself pursued. The spy overturned, the huntress hunted through the woods like the deer I had once stalked to feed my family. Tamlin’s wolves are close on my heels. I might be the High Lady of the Night Court, the Made daughter of all seven courts, I’m exhausted and I know it’s not within my power to overwhelm a dozen of Tamlin’s sentries, gifted, centuries old High Fae each and every one.

I had left the Spring Court manor a day before and had not stopped running since. Not since Tamlin had learned of my treachery. Since he had torn apart the house in his fury and horror at what he had discovered. Since he had realised that the bride of Spring was now the lady of Night and that I belonged to no-one and nothing but the darkness in my soul I had learned to make my home.

I had embraced that darkness as I left him, more fully than I had ever done before. For my world, for my court, for my family, for my mate, I had unleashed every  bit of power I possessed. I had shown him every piece of me, had shown him who I was, had made him see me, see me and understand me. For the first time since the fateful day when he burst through the thin wooden door of the cottage I had lived in with my family he had seen who and what I truly was.

I was a survivor. I was the Cursebreaker, the Defender of the Rainbow, High Lady of the Night Court. I had survived death and the abyss that had followed. I had risen filthy and bloodstained from the ashes of that mortal girl that had died. And I had triumphed. I had been reborn. I had healed. I had conquered. I had made every demon that stalked the dark recesses of my soul go in fear of my name. I was Feyre Archeron and I had taught them all exactly what that meant.  

When the Spring Court had come down around me, Tamlin’s bellow of fury still sounding in my ears I had run. I had run. Faster than I had ever run in my life. To my mate, my mate, my mate. My heart pounds in time with those words, that mantra, that echoes through my mind like a forgotten prayer. My heart keeps time with those words, those words keep time with my heart and both drive me on. _A little more, just a little more, just a little more. Not long now. Not far now. Soon. Soon._

Over. It’s over now. The realisation shocks me to my core as I realise the true depth of my freedom, of what this will feel like, for the first time in my life...to be truly free .No longer will I wear the mask of the meek, shattered doll. No longer will I pretend to be Tamlin’s pet, his delicate blushing pride. No longer will I lie and manipulate and cheat and spy. No longer will I be anything but what I am. No longer will I live for anyone but me.

As I tear through the woods my focus narrows, my senses sharpen, as they had when I had stalked game as a starving mortal girl desperate to feed her family. There had been nothing but my prey. Nothing but the life I must take to save my own and my family’s. Life for life – balancing the scales of fate. If I was to cheat death I must become it, must claim what I needed, must pay what I owed, what I had stolen.

 It had all been borrowed time, time taken from the lives I had harvested. Every breath, every beat of my heart had cost. And I had paid. Paid in blood again and again. In those moments I had known only that, that price, as I had walked that thin grey line like a tightrope. Death or life, life or death, it had all contracted down to that second, that heartbeat, that single, blinding, burning light of life that reduced all the world around it to darkness that I had snuffed out with an arrow.

The world blots itself out into nothingness once more as I focus my thoughts, my entire being, upon my mate. The single candle that has burned against the cold, beckoning oblivion that had consumed me in those months after everything had happened. The light that continues to guide me now, and always will, as I run to it, to him.

The trees of the lush Spring woods flash past me. Rich emerald greens peppered with lighter hues, accenting the scene, the deeper, darker notes underlying it all. Browns and blacks provide contrast and make everything seem denser and darker. Here and there flickers and flashes of colour, flowers and animals, burst across my vision like shooting stars.

Beautiful. This court is beautiful on the surface. Misleading. Blinding me to the true nature of its festering black heart. A rose I could have contemplated for years, marvelling at the bold, bright colours, mesmerised by the endless delicate folds of the overlapping petals, splayed like the skirts of a dress mid-dance. It would have kept me enthralled for decades, held in stasis, suspended as though in a trance, never noticing the thorns that tore me to shreds, the roots that would have crept over my body, trapping me in place as they slowly squeezed the life from me.

I feel every rock and root beneath my feet. Hear every ragged breath that falls from my lips. Sense every creature that hides from me, judging me, marking me as too deadly to consider hunting, knowing that they would court death to keep me from my mate. The smooth wood of my bow slides between my hands, the scent of the varnish strong in my nose. The familiar weight of it feels good, makes me feel grounded and in control.

Not long now. Not far. The border draws me ever nearer. Exhaustion sinks deep into my bones, filling them, seeping into the hollows like lead, dragging me down. I want so badly to rest, I want to sleep, I want to collapse to my knees and be consumed by darkness and find some peace at last. I want to drown in dreams and forget. No more fear, no more anticipation, no more lies or pain or war or loss, no more.

Keep going. I have to keep going. Rhys, Rhys, _Rhys_.  

As though he hears me, as though he knows, I feel him call me. _Feyre_. He whispers to me, the word echoing through my mind, my heart, my very soul.

_Feyre_. Urging me on, urging me to him, not letting me give up, not yet.

_Feyre_. I keep going. I keep running. I keep fighting.

_Feyre_. For him. For _him_.

_Rhys_ I whisper back through the bond.

****

I spread my wings out behind me, trying to shake out the knots. The muscles in them, like all others in my body, are tight. Drawn back like the string of a bow, ready to launch me into the air like an arrow shot among the stars. My instincts roar at me to fly. Fly and fly and fly until I fall. Until the stars find that some darkness is too black for even them to call home and cast me out.

I had never felt trapped within my own skin before I had found myself a prisoner in Amarantha’s black court for fifty years. Like clothes that are too tight it itches and suffocates until I long to tear myself from it, free myself from the confines of my own mind. The desire plagues me and to fight it, to spite it, to spite _her_ , she who made my body betray me, made me into her own twisted fantasy and my own festering nightmare, I force myself to remain unnaturally still.

I give my wings a sharp snap, trying to rid them of their knots before tucking them in against my body once more. I keep my eyes closed, not wanting to see the evidence of how late she is painted across the sky by a bold, mocking hand as the sun sinks towards the horizon, dying the rich blue sky a fantastic burst of reds and golds. My mind screams that truth at me quite loudly enough as it is.

Late. Late. She should be here. She should be in my arms. She should have been hours ago. Late. Missing. Hurt. Gone- No, no I would know, I would have felt it. Reason and terror make my trembling body into their torn up battlefield as they war over the right to rule my heart and mind. Panic wins out, rising, boiling my blood, obliterating my reason.

I close my eyes and think of my mate, ground myself in memories of her. Feyre is strong, smart, a constant survivor. She has spent her entire life defying the odds, doing things the Mother herself would have deemed impossible. She delights in proving them all wrong, spitting in the face of death herself and refusing to apologise for it. She was my High Lady, my mate, and every shred of logic I possessed told me she would be fine. But it was difficult to hear the cool, composed words of logic over the deafening cacophony of screams my panic has become.

I feel the beast stir beneath my skin. I feel my bones shift, my muscles melt like Feyre’s paints running in the rain. I feel talons pushing against my restraint, threatening to puncture through my paper thin self-control. I feel the roar of untamed fury in my blood, more than ready to unleash itself upon the world that would keep my mate from me. I am straining against my iron will, on the verge of losing everything, giving in to that side of me that I despise but that I can’t keep caged much longer, not in the state I’m presently in. Then a soft summer breeze runs gentle fingers through my hair. The tang of salt, the soft scent of wildflowers, the warmth of this court...And carried upon it wood varnish and fresh cut grass.

_Her_. Her scent. Our scent.

My eyes snap open again.

****

On, on, on, on.

Rhys pulses through me with every shuddering beat of my heart, as though he is a fire that burns in my blood, surging to every part of me, lending me his strength even as my own fails. Close, he’s closer to me now than he’s been in weeks. I can feel him, can feel the bond, can feel him hammering on the other side of it, clawing at it, determined to break through our barriers to get to me. Just as I am with him.

We’ve had to silence it for weeks for my safety, bury it down deep inside ourselves to prevent me being discovered, even though it had killed both of us to do it. It had been torture. Worse than any physical pain I had ever endured. Shutting him out, keeping him away from me, refusing to let him in, refusing to let myself feel him, not communicating unless it was absolutely necessary and only ever in brief bursts, quick words that only left us more miserable, more desperate to be together again.

Now the bond burns and sings with him. Anticipation tights low and hot in my belly. It’s a sensation I’ve become sickeningly familiar with these past few weeks. Constantly on edge, constantly unsettled, never relaxed, never at ease, always waiting. Waiting, fearing, dreading the moment I would be caught, the things I would have to do for my court, for the friends who had become family, for the male who now meant everything to me.

This is a different kind of animal however. This is a head anticipation, like hot whiskey sliding down my throat, fire burning through my veins, thunder clouds gathering around me, waiting to break. This is the irresistible pull towards something I want more than I can ever fully comprehend. A drive that is deeper than thought, deeper than reason, deeper than want, deeper than need, deeper even than base instinct. This is a call that sings from the very core of his soul. A call that was heard and drawn to by mine before I ever knew it was there. A wish that was whispered on a stolen breath into the safety of silent, peaceful night and answered over and over again by my love.

I feel the hum and taste the sharp tang of magic on my tongue as I reach the border between the Spring and Summer courts. Where freedom waits. Behind me lies Tamlin, still rattling love gilded shackles that he seeks to bind me with. Behind me lies my prison, my cage. Beautiful and comfortable and so _safe_ but a cage all the same. Behind me lies the toxic love that would have killed us both. Behind me lies the past, black and bruised and broken as I had been. Behind me lies the shattered chains that I will never wear again; the cracked porcelain and fraying strings of the broken doll I will never be again; the hollowed eyes that may yet haunt my dreams but that I will never look into when I face a mirror again.

Before me is my mate. My family. My court. My life. My future. My own.

I close my eyes and press my palm to the crackling shield which is all that stands between me and my salvation. I think of summer, of lapping waves and glittering pearls and the feeling of sand trapped between my toes. Claimed by none and Made by all, creature of seven courts, I become Summer itself and slip forever from the mantle of Spring.  

I open my eyes and find a beach before me, bathed in the rich, warm glow of the sun that allows itself to be swallowed once more by the ever ravenous edges of the endless sea. The scent of it fills my nostrils but then...Then my lungs are full of not only the sea but of citrus too. I exhale in wonder only to greedily suck down another breath, needing to know, needing to be _sure_ , that it is, that it  is... _Him._  

Rhys. My mate. My _mate_.

I begin to run again.

****

My wings billow like sails as they burst from my body, storm clouds darkening a clear, peaceful horizon. Driving them down I launch myself into the air in a single, powerful thrust upwards. My eyes scan the beach that unfolds beneath me, the border line at the edges of my vision, this the closest I could get to it, for my first sight of her.

 It’s been weeks. Weeks without seeing her, without holding her, without touching her. Torture. Worse by far than anything I had felt in those months when we had escaped from Amarantha and she had been stuck in that court, wasting away a little more each day. Then the bond had been new and so fragile compared to the raging torrent that now bridges us. It had been quiet, meek, gentle tugs against my soul, urging me patiently to go to her, to help her, to seek her out. At the time it had been a torment, an agony I had drowned with work and my joy at being reunited with the family I had never expected to see again until we all entered the void and found one another again on the other side.

Now that the bond has been sealed between us it feels like a hurricane bursting from my bones and shredding my vulnerable being to shreds with its fury at our separation and my meek acceptance of it. My respect and love for Feyre can’t simply nullify hundreds of years worth of instincts and it’s been a near constant battle against them, one I’m increasingly beginning to lose as my nerves begin to fray dangerously close to the core of my fears.

My wings cleave at the open sky again to keep me aloft and my eyes rake continually over the landscape before me. When she rounds the bend and tears onto the beach as though being chased with death herself snapping at her heels the breath leaves my lungs. But I know that she and I are quite alone here, that she is being pursued by nothing but her own desperate need to see me again, as strong as my need for her.  

As she looks up at me I allow my wings to stop beating even as my heart does. I free-fall to the soft sand below. I see her stop opposite me, chest heaving, sweat clinging to her in a thin sheen, heightening her scent to a near maddening pitch. And her eyes...Those beautiful, startling blue-grey eyes, stubborn and fierce and unyielding as the Illyrian mountains, are fixed right on me.

For a moment we simply stop and compel the world to do the same. Eternity balances on a knife’s edge; the impossible weight of the future is taken from our shoulders and suspended by a thread as fine as silk above us. The space between us remains taut and frozen, like wings flared and drawn, poised to pulse, to move, to pitch the world into motion again.

But now we wait. Simply staring at each other. Every moment that has passed before us and every moment that will condenses itself into the pocket of space that is all that now separates us. Neither of us moves. Neither of us speaks. Neither of us dares breathe. Afraid to break something, afraid to break the thread, afraid to seize the one thing we want above all else where it waits before us lest it be snatched away at the last moment. As everything in our lives so often is.

Disbelief. Weeks I’ve waited for this moment. Hours I’ve stood alone in this beach, knowing she was coming to me. Yet all I feel now is disbelief. Because she’s here. Here. After so long, so much fear, so much pain, so much loss and uncertainty and risk. The potential to lose everything- again- had loomed over me like a death shroud every day she had been gone. But she’s here. Here. Whole. Unharmed. Free. Mine.

The knife slips. The thread snaps. The moment shatters. My heart dares another beat. And we move, surging for each other, at precisely the same moment.  

****

My feet slip over the loose sand, slick as silk, and I falter for a moment as I attempt to adjust to it. It’s so different from the steady, rugged forest floor of the Spring court. But I adapt after that first stumble and fall into a new, swift rhythm that has me flying over the beach towards him.

I don’t know what strings my mate had to pull, what promises he might have had to make, what threats or bribes or tricks were involved in making this possible, allowing us to meet here in Summer after our banishment, those blood rubies. I don’t care.

The exhaustion that had threatened to overwhelm me in the Spring Court is gone. Blown away by the soft gusts of ocean air that carry my mate’s scent to me. Stronger with every bounding step I take it fills my mouth, my throat, my lungs, until I’m drowning in nothing but him. My aching muscles quiet, my desperate flight through the Spring Court, pursued by Tamlin’s dogs, might never have happened, already distant as a half-forgotten memory. There is only him, only Rhys. The bond swelling between us all the time, blossoming like a new sky in the dark heavens, pulling me to him.

I hurtle around a bend and the full expanse of the small golden beach, bathed in the last rays of the dying sun, unfolds before me, pristine and perfect. And there he is. Hovering above it all. Rhys. My Rhys. A midnight silhouette against the glowing sky behind him.

The sun blazes at his back, burning through those magnificent translucent wings, spread to their fullest extent, dominating the scene before me. Hot red veins, like liquid fire pulsing through black rock, stand out against the rich velvet canvas of the thin membrane. My mind begins cataloguing every colour, every shade, wondering how I might capture each and every one of them, how I might preserve this moment with paint and brush. I want to store it all in some vault in my mind I can draw upon later. The rich crushed blackberry violet of his illuminated wings. The roaring fiery reds, oranges and yellows that flare around him. The deep, uncut sapphire blue of the ocean at his back. The moonlight white of the sand at my feet that sparkles at my feet like a diamond hoard.

I want to capture this moment forever in my mind, place it onto canvas the same way it’s imprinted itself upon my heart. My mate seems to erupt as though a sun has exploded behind me, bursting forth in tendrils of pure, bright light, consuming me . I feel as though I’m watching the rebirth of a god, binding himself into a body of flesh and blood and bone as he descends to earth. A shooting star that falls at my feet. For me. All for me.

My mate. Beautiful. Terrible. Crafted from power and cunning and compassionate grace. Perfect. Flawed. Strong. Vulnerable. Infinite. _Mine_.

He folds his wings and lets himself crash to the ground, body bowing as he absorbs the impact of the fall. Straightening to his full height his eyes meet mine at once and a jolt of pure, raw emotion snaps through me. His eyes a rich, violet sky, that burst with the starlight returned to them again in my presence.

I barely dare to breathe as I look at him. This moment feels so achingly, so dangerously fragile. Like a baby bird cradled in my hands I’m afraid if I hold it too tightly, if I seize onto it the way I want to, to press it to my chest and keep it against my heart I’ll crush it even as I aim to preserve it. But my chest is heaving with exertion and emotion that tightens to a hard lump in my throat. Swallowing I try to push my heart back down where it belongs beneath my ribs but it refuses to move.

All I can do is look, just look, at my mate and the space between us. Like a painting upon the wall all I can do is stare at it, frozen and immobile, its subjects cursed to remain in that one snapshot of time for eternity. I would spend a hundred eternities in this...If only I could hold him.

Then something, something in both of us, buried deep beneath my understanding, snaps at the same time. One moment we’re both standing at either end of the beach, staring at one another, trying to convince ourselves that we, that this, is real. Then we’re moving, moving at exactly the same time, launching ourselves towards each other.

The bond explodes between us and for a heartbeat I slip from my body, from my self, and see through Rhys’s eyes.

I’m dimly aware of him experiencing the same thing in reverse, seeing himself as I see him. But my focus, as Rhys’s is, quickly becomes consumed by me. Dressed in worn, dark flying leathers, covered in blood and sweat and filth, my hair dragged back in a now loose and fraying braid...Somehow, in over five and a half centuries in this world, of all the things he’s witnessed, all the things he’s experienced, the sight of me, ragged and exhausted and half-dead on my feet, is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. The most beautiful thing he thinks he’ll ever see. 

A second before our bodies crash together with all the raw, untamed energy of a wild, unchecked thunderstorm, I come back to myself to feel his arms wrap tightly around me.

****

My vision blurs for a moment and then I’m seeing through my mate’s eye, watching myself run to her, thinking of me the way that she does. Wings billow from my back, huge, leathery, enormous. My eyes are dark, magic and power roil from me in waves and yet...Yet Feyre runs to me. Feyre sees me beneath it all, beneath the mask, beneath the title, beneath the power. She finds a heart that has not yet become so twisted and blackened that it no longer feels anything at all. She sees that, sees me, has always seen me.

Even when we were trapped Under the Mountain together and she was a mere human and I appeared to be Amarantha’s favourite pet. A male who had forced her beloved High Lord to kneel for her, who had been willing to shatter the mind of her friend right in front of her...Even then she had not feared me. She, a nineteen year old human girl with no friends and no allies in that festering place, had dared to do what few had ever done where I was concerned. She had looked at me and she had not been afraid, she had not trembled before me, had never sought to hide from me, even when I had been at my very worst.

My equal. Before she had ever known the horror of what it was to be powerless to save those that she loved. Before she had ever blackened her soul with the same kind of poison that had infested my own for fifty years and come to know what it felt like to make yourself into a monster to protect those you loved. Before she had ever died right in front of me and been Made as High Fae with a power that prowled beneath her skin beyond anything she could have imagined. Before we had mated, before I had sworn her in as my High Lady she been my equal, one of the few people I had ever met who had looked me right in the eye and refused to be anything but themselves.

 

 

I blink as I slip out of her mind and a moment later her body is crashing into mine. Her scent hits me in the next breath that I suck down into my lungs and I swear I could live on nothing but this moment for another five hundred years. My arms snap instinctively around her, holding her against me. My fingers slide deeply into her hair, tugging it from its braid, letting it spill out around me as I stroke it, cradling her against me, my eyes closed. It still feels surreal, still feels as though this can’t be happening, can’t possibly be happening, it’s too much, too perfect to be real.

The bond pulses between us like a second heartbeat and I can feel her love and happiness rippling through me, connecting us. Her body trembles slightly in my arms, exertion and adrenaline and fear still pounding through her combined with the sudden collapse that accompanied relief. She’s so much smaller than me, her body strong but still delicately built in comparison to my own. I can envelope her almost entirely, feeling the warmth of her skin soaking in to me.  

I rub her back slowly, soothing her, settling her. My nose buries itself in her hair, my lips press against her brow and I feel her muscles, taut and still ready to flee or fight, relax slightly now that she is once again in my embrace. My hands move gently over her, working out the tension from her as much as I can. Her hand fists itself in the dark tunic I have on. I wanted to don my flying leathers and have my wings out for all to see, not giving a damn about masks or appearances or perceptions. But I had gone to Summer as High Lord of Night and had chosen the close fitting, stunningly made finery as a reflection of that, a reminder of who and what I was in case Tarquin had needed further encouragement in upholding our bargain. But Feyre doesn’t seem to care what I have on, only that she can cling to it, pull me closer, hold me more tightly. I slowly fold my wings around us both and I feel her smile through the bond, hear her murmur something about my dramatics down the bond and for the first time since Hybern I feel a soft laugh huff from my lips.

Beneath her usual scent she smells of sweat and mud and blood but I never want to let her go again. Through the bond I feel her irritable indignation at my noticing the state that she’s in and a rough laugh rumbles through her from me. I give her a soft squeeze and press a deliberate kiss to her filthy hair to let her know I still love her in spite of this. I hear her hoarse laugh, slightly muffled by the way she presses it into my chest, but it sounds like the sweetest music to me all the same.

 Joy, pure joy blazes from her through me and I feel every bit of panic erased, like footprints in the sand, yielding to the irresistible force of my mate’s love, making it seem as though it had never been. I radiate love back to her, rich and intoxicating, like the finest solstice wine, delighting in the bond, in the ability to have her _feel_ everything again. The raw emotions that tear through me are only heightened by the bond. I can feel everything that she feels alongside my own relief and happiness and it might have been too much, might have been unbearable and overwhelming had it been anyone but her.

Looking down at her I let a slow, soft smile spread across my face. My fingers slide under her chin, tilting her face up to mine. I look into her eyes, studying her, searching her for any sign of hurt or worry or problem but there’s nothing, nothing. All that lives now in my mate’s eyes is love and my smile broadens.

“Feyre,” I whisper softly, pressing the word through the bond as well as speaking it aloud. My throat bobs as I swallow, struggling to find the words to tell her everything, how I feel, how much I love her, how much I missed her, how terrified I was that she too would be taken from me. But they won’t come and in the end all I do is stroke a lock of her hair behind her ear so I can see her face more clearly, my hand settling on her cheek, cupping her face, stroking her skin with the ball of my thumb and her name bursts from me again, strained and rough from forcing its way past my tight, raw throat, containing every bit of emotion I can’t find the words for.

“ _Feyre_ ,” I whisper, then shatter.

****

I bury my face against Rhys’s chest, savouring the feeling of being with him again, of being together again. Those weeks in the Spring Court felt like an eternity without him, without my friends but I was here, I was with him, I was where I belonged again. Tamlin would never again think that I could ever be his, Rhys and I would no longer have to hide our love, our bond, my status as High Lady.

For the first time in so long I could breathe again, could let my guard down and be a little less than strong, a little less than perfect, a little less than everything. In the safe cradle of his arms I could be flawed and weak and vulnerable and trust that he would never let me fall. As it is I can feel my legs shaking, the energy utterly drained from my limp body and only Rhys’s sold arms around me keep me on my feet pressed against him.

With what seems a monumental effort he draws back slightly, looking down at me, concern flaring in his eyes. He cups my face in his hands, stroking back my hair to look at me properly. I know he’s searching for that darkness, those ghosts that had haunted me when I had first started coming to the Night Court, all those months ago, to fulfil the bargain he had made with me Under the Mountain in exchange for healing me and saving my life after my first trial. I know that they’re gone, that he helped me banish them, helped me lock them in a place they can never control me as they once did.

“Feyre,” he whispers softly, his thumb gently stroking my cheek and I almost break at the sound of his voice, hearing it again after so long, and the way he says my name. The raw emotion contained within it, the pulse of feeling that hits me through the bond at the same time. He begins to shake slightly as he swallows, lips moving, trying to form words that he doesn’t have until at last he simply says my name once more, “ _Feyre_.”

I hold onto his wrists, needing something to keep me grounded, to keep him grounded. “Rhys,” I breathe back, not sure what to say, what he needs as I watch him shudder before me. I probe him lightly through the bond, feeling such an overwhelming cocktail of emotions tearing him apart, panic and relief and love and want and need and anger and joy and grief and pain and pleasure. It’s a wonder he’s managed to keep himself intact these weeks, a testament to that iron will and restraint of his.  

Bowing his head, Rhys lowers his eyes from mine, panting hard, his breathing ragged and laboured in a way I recognise to mean that panic is gripping him, in spite of my being reunited with him. Sliding my hands behind his head I lift it just a little, just enough to allow me to lean forwards and press my brow gently against his.

“Rhys,” I murmur again, my fingers carding through his soft blue-black hair, stroking, soothing him. “I’m alright,” I say softly, pushing reassurance and my own relief down the bond to him to try and make him understand that.

His hands drop to my shoulders, slide down my arms, run over every inch of me that he can easily reach, his eyes searching almost frantically, “You’re not hurt?” he asks, his voice a low rasp.

“No,” I say, firm and certain. I’m exhausted and drained, my power depleted but...I’m not injured in any way. Swallowing hard I look up at him and ask, my voice shaking, “The others, are they-“

“Fine,” he breathes, answering the question I can’t quite bring myself to fully ask. “Everyone is fine,” he insists. He slips a few memories into the back of my mind, my sisters, alive and well and safe, struggling to adjust to their transformations but...alright. Cassian and Azriel’s recovery, both difficult in their own way, both terrifying for him and Mor and Amren but...They’re alright too. My family are safe.

I pitch forwards and hug Rhys as relief courses through me, a great weight lifted from my shoulders. But though he had tried to conceal it, underlying all of the memories I can feel his worry for me, his fear that I would be caught and hurt or killed. I look up at him, find his eyes on me, still trying to convince himself that I’m real, that I’m here with him, that this didn’t all end in disaster. I know that Rhys will always be the last person to ever question my competence, my ability to take care of myself. But we had both known the huge risk I was taking, the danger I had placed myself in in willingly returning to Tamlin’s court to pretend to be his bride while really being a spy.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper softly to him, unable to bring myself t look into his eyes as I say those words, “I’m so sorry, Rhys.”

A low growl rumbles through my mate’s chest at my words, at the sudden rush of shame and guilt that I’m unable to fully stifle with the bond so open and raw between us. He takes my chin gently but firmly between his thumb and forefinger, lifts my head until I’m looking straight into those beautiful, endless eyes. “No,” he snarls flatly to me, “You have nothing to be sorry for, Feyre. _Nothing_.” He adds, his voice becoming a little rougher at that last word, at the flicker of unspoken protest that had shot through me.

“You were brave,” he whispers quietly to me, his voice dropping, becoming softer, gentler once more as he presses his forehead against mine, connecting us once more. “You were so brave, Feyre, so selfless. I don’t- I didn’t mean-“ he falters, pauses, composes himself. “I was afraid for you, of course I was, we all were. A part of me ached for the choice that you made, for thinking that I- that we-could have needed you to make that decision for us but...” He trails off, eyes shining with silver. Then he strokes back my hair and continues, voice stronger, steadier now,

 “What you did that day for my- for _our_ court, our people...The sacrifice you made...” His voice breaks a little on the word ‘sacrifice’ and I understand why, understand that of all the people in Prythian no-one but my mate could ever understand what that was, the depth of what I had done. No-one but the male who had made such a similar sacrifice fifty years before for his friends, his court, his world, who had lived with it and been willing to die through it and had existed without hope for so long...I had known what my leaving would do to him, how it would affect him, _why_ it would affect him so, no matter what he said to me now. I would regret that pain that I had caused him for a long time to come I was sure, seeing him now, feeling his grief, his anguish through the bond, though he tries to stifle it.

But Rhys continues, his gaze never faltering, never flinching from mine. And there is such...Devotion in his words that for a moment I can do nothing but feel them in my soul as he presses them into it like a tattoo. “I am _proud_ to call you my High Lady,” he tells me, his voice throbbing with fierce love as he speaks. “I am honoured to have you as my mate, to have your love, to be able to call myself yours.”

A smile touches my lips as his words fly like an arrow, straight and true, piercing precisely where he had intended. “I am proud to be your High Lady,” I reply softly, my hand cupping his cheek, trembling just slightly. “I am honoured to have you as my mate, Rhys, to have your love...And to be able to call you mine.” He presses a soft, slow kiss to my forehead, his eyes closing.

The emotion of the last few weeks finally overwhelms me, finally becomes too much and a strangled sob chokes from my throat. Through it I manage to force out the words, “I missed you.” I feel Rhys freeze against me, caught unawares by this, “I missed you, Rhys. I missed you.”

He draws me into the safety of his arms once more, wrapping them around me, folding his body completely around mine, “I missed you too, darling,” he murmurs, his hot breath stirring my hair. Then he’s pressing another kiss to the top of my head, giving me a soft squeeze, gently rubbing my back again to calm me. “But it’s over now,” he breathes softly, exhaling, his voice dropping, speaking to himself as well as me. “You’re free, now. You’re back now. It’s over. It’s over.”  

_It’s over_. It takes a long moment for those words, for the full extent of them, to hit me. Over. It’s over. It’s all over. I got out. I never have to go back. I’m free. With Rhys again. Together. Reunited with my mate. Together. _Together_. I bury my face against Rhys’s chest again, breathing him in, hiding my smile against his tunic. I only move again when I feel him shift against me and look up in time to see him spreading his great black wings out to their fullest extent at his back.

****

I spread my wings, slowly, luxuriously, giving Feyre a moment to admire them the way I know she loves. I allow them to fill with the strong wind that blows from the ocean behind us, swelling taut until I drive them down, pushing myself from the soft sand with my legs as well as the wings and I launch the two of us into the air. As ever, Feyre gives a small yelp of surprise that turns quickly into a bright laugh. She buries her face in against the crook of my neck to protect herself from the rush of chill air that blazes past us.  

Once we circle high over the beach I slow and she looks down over the cradle of my arms, down at the beach we had just left, at the rocks and streams that branch from it, at the dense cluster of trees on the far horizon that marks the border with Spring, the walls of her prison that she had shattered with her will. I press another soft kiss against the top of her head and she squeezes the top of my arm where she clings tightly to it.

I soar silently over the scene, a midnight ghost, undisturbed by the silence around us, the darkness that strains to envelope the landscape around us in its grasp as the sun battles to remain for just a little longer. In the end both will triumph, light and dark in an endless cycle, the same pattern that peace and war seem to follow. Both seeming as inevitable as the turning of the earth, both yielding to one another in the end.

Pushing those thoughts away I allow myself a moment, just a moment, to forget the war that beckons, the black armies that, even now, march upon my court, my family. For a moment, fragile as a newly spun cobweb, the world is quiet and empty and belongs only to the dreamers that it holds in a gentle embrace.

I tilt my wings a little, angling them to catch the updraft that spirals from below, lifting us higher, but slower and smoother than our initial ascent. I pray to the Mother that I never lose the joy that fills me whenever I allow myself to be held by the sky in this way. There is a power beyond anything that ripples in my veins in being able to float above the world and know nothing but the wild abandon that floods me. Each time I spread my wings I let my Illyrian instincts take over just a little, roaring in my blood that this is where I am supposed to be, where I was made to be, that I should never allow myself to be bound to the earth for longer than is absolutely necessary.

The sheer joy that bursts inside my soul when I’m flying is unlike any I’ve ever experienced. I had almost lost it, lost everything Under the Mountain. It had been something that Amarantha had taken from me, had delighted in taking from me without ever knowing the full extent of what she was denying me. An Illyrian trapped underground for nigh on fifty years. An Illyrian who had pinned his own wings by necessity, keep them hidden, keep them safe, refrain from giving her yet another weapon to use against me. An Illyrian who had spent so long locked in the foul belly of the earth that I had truly forgotten what it sounded like when the wind whispered my name and called me to it.

Now, with Amarantha dead, knowing that I never have to return to that place, knowing that I will never have to live and suffer until I finally die all without seeing a flicker of sun, makes the taste of this flight all the sweeter. I’ve spent more time than perhaps my duties could have allowed, but still far less time than I would have liked, in the air since my escape and Amarantha’s downfall. The nights that have been utterly unbearable, confined in my bed and in my twisted dreams, have been when I’ve truly savoured my wings and my Illyrian heritage most.

This feeling, the feeling of being able to spread my wings and launch myself into the sky with a thought and a pulse of instinct is something I would never be able to explain to someone who had not experienced it themselves. And it reminds me, now more than ever, on the nights when I still feel trapped, that I am free. _Free_. Free and happy and entirely my own again. Nothing reinforces that more than flying, the most limitless kind of freedom I have ever known.

 Despite having the weight of an entire court, the weight of an entire peoples’ hearts and hopes and dreams upon my shoulders...I still feel as though I can escape anything when I throw myself into the arms of the heavens and trust them to catch me. Flying over Velaris I can lose myself in dreams, forget my pressures and responsibilities, my ties and commitments and the decisions that I must make...Along with the decisions that I have made.

It helps, though, the wings, the flying, the freedom. Even though I know it’s only temporary, even though I know that at some point I must return to the ground, to the real world, to my title and my duties, it helps. It lets me simply _be_ , simply exist, simply exist for myself and my own small hopes and loves for just a little while.

To be able to share all of that, the joy, the freedom, the release, with my mate is...

I look down at her and find her watching me, a soft expression her face, her eyes warm and tender and full of such emotion that I feel my heart falter. She stretches up, softly cupping my face in her hand, thumb stroking affectionately. Reaching towards her, a soft smile tugging at my lips, I take her fingers softly between my own, threading them together, bringing her hand briefly to my lips before I raise my eyebrows at her questioningly

“What are you thinking?” I ask her quietly.

“Mm?” she murmurs distractedly, eyes slightly glazed over as she raises them to meet mine again.

I smirk, tap her lightly on the nose making her blink which causes a flicker of amusement to pulse to her from me through the bond. At that she scowls in indignation and I huff out a laugh and, her attention now focused on me, before she can comment on my action I say lightly, “A thought for a thought?”

****

Smiling at the question, at the familiarity of it, of him, our relationship and the way we work together I nestle against him. Breathing him in I allow myself to soak in the pleasure that radiates through the bond to me. I’m not sure he’s fully aware that he’s doing it, don’t think he’s trying to share this with me but...The bond is still so open and raw between us after how long we were forced to stifle it that I feel what he does as though the emotions were my own.

I had known that he loved to fly, that he often took solace in the escape that it provided him, the release it gave him but...I had no idea he felt like _this_. And that he would share that with me, that he would _want_ to share this with me, his greatest joy...Means more to me than I will ever know how to tell him.

The joy in him isn’t only from flying again either. I know that a lot of it is his pleasure at having me back again, having me in his arms, safe again. _Mine_ he whispers through the bond. And I am. I am his in a way that I am comfortable being. Because this is not a base possession, our bond, our love is not a way of seeing me as a trophy to be polished and proudly displayed upon his arm. It is simply belonging in the sense that he and I were made together, were bonded together by the Cauldron and the fates and whatever else conspired to gift us with this. Belonging in that I am supposed to be at his side, as he is supposed to be at mine. And for all that I am his; he is equally mine.

We savour that feeling, the rightness that settles heavy into the pit of my stomach at being with him again. The bond between us seems to purr, content at last, no longer ragged and frantic, chafing against us in its agitation to reunite us. Rhys strokes a finger lovingly down it and my spine arches in response, making me shiver. I know he’s gently nudging me into answering his question, playing our game together, a thought for a thought.

Pillowing my head comfortably against his shoulder, my arms around his chest then murmur simply, “I’m thinking that I love you.”

I feel him jolt slightly against me, apparently surprised by this answer, and I look up at him in bemusement wondering how he could have imagined that I was thinking anything else. Seeing him like this, so at ease, so at peace, doing something that gave him such joy...It had been impossible not to fall just a little more in love with him. He watches me with that odd look of surprise for another heartbeat but then his face splits into a soft, warm smile. The kind that makes him look younger, freer, as though he never spent any time under that mountain with that monster, never bloodied his hands and blackened his soul and hung so many burdens upon his conscience. The kind that I never want to leave his face.

He presses a soft kiss to my nose this time and I sigh in mock exasperation but then he’s drawing back, murmuring tenderly, “I’m thinking that I love you too, Feyre, darling.”  

I open my mouth to answer him but the words never make it out, smothered by the soft, warm press of Rhys’s tongue as he kisses me, long and slow and deep, at last.

****

Sliding a hand round behind her head to hold her steady against me I lean down and kiss my mate at last. I feel her slight surprise at the suddenness of the gesture, coming as she’d been about to say something but...Hearing her tell me that she loved me, hearing myself say those words again, able to look into her eyes as I said them was overwhelming and I had...Needed her more than I could ever put into words.

She yields to me almost at once, her mouth softening against mine, shaping itself to the kiss. Her lips part hungrily, encouragingly, and I ease my tongue slowly into her mouth, tasting her again. A soft whimper is slipped into my mouth and I groan in response, unable to help myself. My fingers ease deeply into her hair, tangling through it, tugging gently, adding a little tension to the kiss. Her hand rises to rest against my cheek, her fingertips flexing against my skin as she draws me in, urges me a little more.

Drawing back for a moment to let us breathe I stare down into her eyes, swallowing hard and stroking her hair back from her face. She nods faintly, answering a question I hadn’t even known that I was asking but I know precisely what she’s saying yes to, precisely what she’s encouraging me to do. My lips descend once more, claiming her mouth with mine again.

This kiss is rougher, hungrier, faster than the last. Heat blazes between us and this time her tongue presses into my mouth, pushing past my lips with an authority that surprises me for a heartbeat. Then I’m sinking into it, into her, letting her guide us this time, letting her take what she wants, what she needs from me. I close my eyes, indulging in her, in the taste of her tongue, the warmth of her mouth, the feel of her lips, soft as silk, against my own. When we part this time we’re both panting, foreheads pressed together, our short, heavy breaths mingling in the air between us.

Stroking my fingers gently through her hair I press another kiss to her lips, gentle and swift, just needing to join us again, if only for a brief moment. “I love you,” I whisper to her again, “I love you, Feyre. So much.”

She kisses me again, catching the corner of my mouth but not seeming to care, “I love you too, Rhys,” she breathes quietly, nestling in against me.

The sun at last sinks down fully beneath the lip of the horizon. The last desperate rays of warm golden light of day are swallowed by the hungry, waiting night. Feyre and I both find ourselves staring at the point where the sun had vanished, then, as one, we look up at each other again.  

Taking a deep breath, never tearing my eyes from my mate’s, I coax a thick, rippling blanket of darkness over us, having it envelope us where we hover, high above the quiet beach below. With a small smile and a small wave of her hand, Feyre causes stars to blossom through my velvet black curtain, glimmering like stars, transforming us into a piece of the night itself.  

****

I stretch up and kiss him again, cupping his face in my hand to guide his mouth down to meet mine. Then I close my eyes and settle completely in his arms. Sleep pulls at the fringes of my mind, the exhaustion that hangs heavy in my bones reminding me of how tired I am. I fully intend to yield to it soon, in Rhys’s arms, trusting him to get us both home safely but...But I want to savour this, this moment between us for just a little longer, just a little longer.  

I love this, and I know that Rhys does too, that he’s committing every heartbeat of this reunion to memory, even as I am. I long to see my court, my family, again, long to see them react to my return. Mor will no doubt laugh and hug me tightly, welcoming me back, reassuring me that it’s alright now, I have much better company in her, not to worry. Amren will give me one of those wicked smirks of hers that might once of made me shiver but will now make me smile. Cassian will pull me into one of his famous rib-crushing bear hugs and gruffly tell me that it’s good to have me back, that Rhys’s moaning was starting to drive him up the wall. Az will likely restrain himself a little more, merely nodding, perhaps clasping my hand, but will tell me too that he missed me, that it’s nice to have me here again. My heart swells at the thought of every one of them but this, right now, is something I’m sure I will never forget.

Peace, true peace, a kind I haven’t known...Perhaps ever, fully, in my life settles over me here, now. We drift quietly through our shifting canvas of night, the thing that shields us from reality, and we are completely alone here. There isn’t another soul for miles and miles around and even if there was, they could look up at the sky and see nothing but rippling darkness and dancing stars.

The sun has set fully now, the night claiming us as its own. For a moment, everything stops. For a moment the world pauses, compelled by the force of our will, our love, our desire to have this moment, this one moment before everything crashes down upon us again. The world lifts its weight from our shoulders. The war finds an unlikely ceasefire upon this silent, lonely beach, the armies halt, the banners fall, peace finds a way to blossom in the heart of even the most sadistic, bloodthirsty soldier. The fear cannot touch me here, wrapped in velvet darkness, surrounded by my mate, safe in his arms. The horror of all that confronts us stops.

It all stops. For a moment. For us.

****

 

                                                                                                                                                                          

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I still haven't written a huge amount of feyrhys yet but I'm hoping this came out okay?


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